Sunday, June 14, 2020

Moscow has Thrown Regions to Their Fates Just as It Did Union Republics at End of Soviet Times, Kasparov Portal Says


Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 12 – During the coronavirus pandemic, the editors of the Kasparov portal say, “the federal center has thrown to the mercy of fate the regions” much as the union center did at the end of Soviet times, thereby setting the stage for an equally tumultuous outcome unless the Russian political system undergoes significant changes.

            The opposition portal devotes most of its essay to a discussion of the back-and-fourth and, in its eyes, failed approach Moscow adopted to the republics and regions since 1991, an approach in which the center first simply ignored what was going on and then cracked down hard in often counterproductive ways (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5EE33317EB0B8).

            Chechnya fought two wars and was “defeated” by Moscow only to acquire the ability to do pretty what its leaders want and to be paid a subsidy by the Russian government at the same time. Tatarstan and some other republics adopted less dramatic forms of resistance and obtained less as a result, although relations are anything but acceptable to both sides.

            And predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays have sought sovereignty but have seen their powers stripped away and have refocused their attention on building power bases within existing territorial lines rather than forming larger units like the Urals Republic and the Siberian Agreement, which nonetheless remain in the back of the minds of many Russians.

            Beginning under Boris Yeltsin but in a more consistent and extreme form under Vladimir Putin, both federalism and self-administration disappeared. “Gradually out of our lives disappeared the presidents of the republics (with the exception of Tatarstan) who became heads of regions. Regional heads were no longer elected but appointed, and Putin’s men were dispatched to rule the regions.

            “Unexpectedly,” the editors write, “the theme of federalization emerged again in 2015. In attempting to present itself as a peacemaker, the Kremlin proposed as a means to resolve the conflict in the Donbass the creation of a federation in which separatism could occupy the place of some republics within a federative Ukraine.”

            Kyiv viewed that as a plan to divide the country, but “in Russia, some understood it in their own way; and in a number of regions, actions for the federalization of the regions of Russia took place. Activists declared that their demands completely corresponded to the provisions of the Constitution,” the editors say.

            Such demands circulated first and foremost in Siberia and in the Kuban.  Moscow responded by arresting and charging participants with extremism. Like so many other occasions on which the Kremlin has used force, that did not solve the problem the demonstrators were speaking or end their desire for a new deal between Moscow and the regions and republics.

            “On this current anniversary of the sovereignty of the Russian Federation, we have received amendments to the Constitution about a state-forming people and others which in fact are designed to destroy the authority of local power figures,” the Kasparov editors say. “Nevertheless, the issue about the redistribution of authority between the center and the regions remains open.”

            Many in the non-Russian republics and the predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays will be disappointed that the Kasparov organization does not go further in demanding real federalism; but both groups have long been aware that when it comes to such issues, the Russian opposition is seldom prepared to go much beyond calling for greater self-administration rather than real federalism.

            What is important in this case, however, is that the Kasparov editors put the problems of relations between Moscow and the non-Russian republics and between Moscow and the predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays into one category, thus laying the groundwork for demands for a new kind of federalism that would help both, rather than leaving Kasparov open to charges he’s supporting secession.

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